Video games, pen&paper RPGs and other nerdery

Wildstar: Meet the blogs

I have to admit that no MMO launch had me quite as pumped as Wildstar’s. I wasn’t around for the WoW launch. Rift’s launch was exciting, as was SWTOR’s, but there’s just something about the Wildstar launch that makes me feel as if this game is seriously going to be the next best thing, with a vibrant and hopefully friendly community. I found a guild home that’s been very promising so far. Carbine devs continue to be amazing. In a world where Ghostcrawler used to be the only WoW dev openly engaging with players, it’s a breath of fresh air to see sooooo many official Carbine folks be in touch with the community. Even lil’ ol me got a shoutout on Twitter, which is really quite amazing, if you ask me. But that might be vanity talking. 😉 An important part for a successful MMO community is the blogosphere of a game. When I started blogging about WoW in 2008, it was when the game had its heyday, and there were what you could consider blogging ‘celebrities’ at the time, like Phaelia, BigRedKitty or Pike. It was the golden time of the class blogs, when picking talents and playing were not as streamlined as they are today. Now we have the rise of the Wildstar blogging scene. I would like to consider myself a Wildstar blog, though I will not narrow my focus down to just one game anymore.

Other blogs focus on Wildstar, and it is those blogs and fansites that I want to highlight today, as link collection. I will also add the blogs to a new Wildstar blogroll that I will try to keep updated weekly. I have compiled the blog list by discovering them myself, asking around on Twitter, reading the Wildstar subreddit and the Fansites, Blogs and Livestreams subforum on the official Wildstar forums. If I have missed any active ones with quality content, please prod me.

The blogs are in alphabetical order.

Wildstar Blogs

Everskies – Casual gamer from Germany, after my own heart, I say. Posts about Wildstar, amongst other things. Can be found on Twitter as @everskies

Healslinger – A spellslinger healing compendium. More theory crafting for all those who want to heal with two pistols. They love addons, I like that. 🙂 Also on Twitter as @healslinger

Honor’s Code– Honorshammer has been around as long as I can remember, writing about paladin tanking back when I was writing about prot warriors in WoW. He’s moving full force to Wildstar now, going to be a ranged tank as engineer. I might tank as stalker. Life’s funny. You can talk to him on Twitter as @TedtheThird.

Mapjabbit Run – This is the Wildstar blog of Applecidermage, who you might know from her WoW blog and the podcast she runs with Tzufit, Justice Points. As a feminist, she often points out alarming developments in MMOs. Her post about Sadie Brightland was particularly interesting. She’s on Twitter as @applecidermage.

Medicating Nexus – if you’re playing a medic and am looking for a theorycrafter, this might be your go-to now. All the numbers. Also on Twitter as @medicatingnexus

Medic Probes – Medics are crazy popular, aren’t they? This blog has great art, features medics prominently, and you can follow the author as @MedicProbes.

Moonshine Mansion – Gracie from Moonshine Mansion is a WoW player who fell in love with Wildstar housing. I expect to see many cool guides and screenshots of all the wildly creative housing we’re going to see in Wildstar. You can find Gracie on Twitter as @DiscGrace.

Moxie & Moonshine – Tzufit is one of the mentioned C&C bloggers, and is one of the hosts of the Justice Points podcast. She’s going to play an esper at launch. She’s a fantastic person, so I have no doubt her blog shall be equally so. She tweets as @soetzufit.

Nexus Nightly – Gubjub and Virika are a couple playing Wildstar. They actually leveled to 50 in the beta, something I painstakingly avoided. It was hard. They’ve already blogged about cool content like tradeskills and healing. Gubjub is tweeting as @NexusNightly.

Nexus Nuggets – Trin fell in love with Wildstar much like I did, and she has already written a couple great posts introducing Wildstar mounts, what all the stats mean, etc. You can follow her on Twitter as @EpicGems.

Pat the Chua – I have read Njessi’s SWTOR blog for a long time, even after I stopped playing the game. She’s all about the chua, and I don’t blame her for that one bit. Expecting healing coverage here. 🙂 You can find the author on Twitter as @PatTheChua

Tanking Nexus – While I don’t actively tank anymore (maybe, I still might go back to it), I still have a soft spot for those who brave it, and want to share their knowledge. Deadmanfred is a prot warrior in WoW and blogs about tanking in Wildstar. He’s available on Twitter as @tankingnexus, and runs his own Twitch stream.

The Loopy Lopp – More C&C blogging. Thing has posted overviews of classes and races, and should really post more about Lopp. Loopy lopps and the weird drugs they use. Ahem. Thing is on Twitter as well, as @thingwhatwows.

The Scowling Cassian – a beautiful and fantastic RP blog. Everything you might need to know about RPing on Nexus, highlights of the different classes, and lovely art. The author is on Twitter as @BrennerHawkins, the artist as @PyraMugetsu

I hope to add many more blogs to the list in the near future.

Fansites:

There are a ton of fansites out there already, competing with news releases, Twitch streams, YT content and podcasts. Following are the ones I like best. Note that I do not listen to podcasts, so I have no idea which sites offer the best Wildstar content in that area.

Arkship – German fansite, so obviously of limited appeal to most readers. It is however an excellent site if you understand the language!

Nice list! thank you for all your hard work compiling it. For podcasts, I love Wildstar Nation – it’s adult & often very NSFW. It may well offend some people but it’s funny and very informative too. The guys don’t mince their words – if they don’t like something in WS, they’ll let you know but they are equally quick to praise & they explain stuff pretty well too.